Historically China’s banking commercial sector has been extremely candidate short, with vacancies remaining unfilled due to severe skill shortages in technical roles. However, with recent economy worries this demand flat lined for a couple of quarters, yet now it would appear that demand is back with avengence!

Relationship managers are in huge demand, not just in Shanghai but also in second and third tier cities. The leading commercial banks are now hiring aggressively and have also reinstated recruitment for financial markets with commodities and fixed income at the forefront of demand. The retail banking market is still seeking branch, and sub-branch managers. In our recent survey that covered the first quarter of 2010, we found that the top six positions in demand are 1. Commercial Relationship Managers, 2. Compliance & Risk Specialists, 3. Treasury & Cash Managers, 4. Retail Relationship Managers, 5. Credit Managers.

The informal consensus among headhunters is that Standard Chartered is noted as possibly the “most aggressive hirer,” with Citi and HSBC are not too far behind, while ANZ and CBA are both becoming serious players in the Shanghai employment market. Also known to be actively hiring are DBS, Deutche Bank and Bank of East Asia, while Bank of China is also playing a leading role in the hiring stakes.

We are currently witnessing a massive hiring spree in Shanghai for front-office roles, with the overseas commercial banks leading the way. Vacancies are up roughly 50 per cent over the first quarter of 2010. Stephen He, one of our Shanghai based Commercial Banking Recruitment Consultants notes that, “Relationship Mangers who can sell to corporate clients are in very high demand. Banks want to high individuals with a proven track record of generating revenue; ideally they must bring clients with them. In terms of candidate profile, what this means is that I’m being asked to look for senior local PRC candidates that have between six and ten years experience with a multinational bank in China. A Chinese banker who has spent the last five years in London or New York may not necessarily have the relationships and track record that my clients are looking for. There is no time to train and candidates need to hit the ground running.”

Salaries still show little consistency from job to job. For senior level roles salaries are often prone to extreme variations depending on supply, demand and the candidate previous salary.

Existing company recruitment processes have remained the same however the assessment and offer period has become extended with many banks having additional approval processes to conduct often on both senior and junior headcounts. While all banks are keen to promote their employment opportunity platform and individual candidate career pathing, salary continues to be the main method of attraction and retention within the sector.

Monica Pei, a Banking Consultant in our Shanghai office comments, “There’s a lot of poaching going on at the moment with the Shanghai based multinational banks “swapping” staff on a fairly regular basis. This means it’s not uncommon to see offers that have a 25-30% salary increase attached. This is up from last year where 15% was more common. At the moment we are also seeing banks actively counter offering to retain staff. I would estimate that in 50% of cases these counter offers are accepted so it seems its working as a retention strategy, albeit a costly one!”
While the economic outlook remains uncertain, no-one wants to be drawn in predicting recruitment demand over the coming months, needless to say for strong commercial bankers that fact that demand exceeds supply would lead us to believe that candidate opportunities will be abundant for some time to come.

Consult Group has considerable experience in locating talent for the banking sector in China. In both first and second tier cities, we frequently place bankers with multinational banks expanding within the Mainland. Our consultants are familiar with the local, regional and global candidate pools available to the industry, thus enabling them to rapidly source, assess and place suitable individuals.